CHRISTOPHER CUOMO: It’s a hat with four words on it, but they can mean a lot to people. I’m talking about the president’s MAGA hat. Now, we hear of a chef in San Mateo, California, saying “you wear that hat into my place, you’re not getting service.” He tweeted stuff like this, saying, “MAGA hats are like white hoods except stupider because you see exactly who is wearing them.” Now he’s taken down some of those tweets, and there are reports the chef is getting threats. What’s right here? What’s wrong? What matters? Let’s bring in D-Lemon, how do you see it?

DON LEMON: I think people should be able to wear whatever they want, right? I don’t like banning. I don’t like boycotting. I don’t like people getting fired for what’s just making honest mistakes. But I do say your clothing tells a story, and if you’ve put certain symbols in your home or in front of your house, things tell stories, and you should be aware of the entire story they tell, not just the little part of it that you want to be told. But I don’t like the idea of banning someone for wearing a hat, but that hat, as we have said, it’s no secret, I told you about how I feel and many people perceive that hat.

CUOMO: Right. So, you have the legality and then–

LEMON: It’s legal, right? You’re the attorney.

CUOMO: You can refuse service. You know, no shirt, no shoes, no service. On that, you’d have a counter First Amendment argument. You’re chilling my rights. It’s a private place. Well, how is this any different than the baker with the cake? Well, that was about refusing service to a group of people that should be a protected class. And, unless you argue that Trump supporters should be a protected class, I don’t think you have much of an argument on that.

…

Here’s my problem on this issue. Ordinarily, I’d go down the line, look, “be bigger than that.” But I don’t want to fold to the trap of underselling the significance of the trigger of the expression to people. I think the more appropriate analogy to say is if people were wearing shirts that said, “I hate black people,” would he be okay to say, “Don’t come into my place with that?” And I think most people would be like, “yeah.”

LEMON: Yeah.

CUOMO: That’s how people like him see the MAGA hat, so does that make it okay? I think that’s the right question.

The man has a make believe friend called T-Bone, and he also wants to be Spartacus. What does he want to be when he grows up?

Democratic Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey said the attack against Empire actor Jussie Smollett was an attempt at “modern-day lynching.” Booker asked Congress to pass an Anti-Lynching bill, which would make lynching a federal hate crime. Both Smollett and his character from Empire identify as gay.

Two men in ski masks reportedly attacked Smollett at 2 a.m. in Chicago on Tuesday. They were “yelling out racial and homophobic slurs” and “poured an unknown chemical substance on the victim” police said. The incident is being investigated as a possible hate crime.

Smollett, who was treated at Northwestern Memorial, told CNN that he tried to fight back against the attackers. He was “angry” that an attack of this caliber happened. He was discharged later in the day on Tuesday, TMZ reported.

This Negro is lying and all these fake news people and activist are going along with it.

Fox Entertainment and 20th Century Fox Television issued a statement after they learned about the attack. Smollett has worked on the Fox series since 2016 where he plays Jamal, a popular singer from the prominent Lyon family.

“We are deeply saddened and outraged to learn that a member of our Empire family, Jussie Smollett, was viciously attacked last night,” a statement said. “We send our love to Jussie, who is resilient and strong, and we will work with law enforcement to bring these perpetrators to justice. The entire studio, network and production stands united in the face of any despicable act of violence and hate—and especially against one of our own.”

Smollett received support from stars like Empire creator Lee Daniels, who was horrified by the attack.

Days before the incident, Smollett was reportedly sent a package to Fox Studios in Chicago. According to a photo posted by TMZ, it had cut out letters that spelled, “You will die black f**.”

There are rumors that Smollett was attacked by MAGA (Make America Great Again) supporters, though police have not confirmed it.

CNN and MSNBC collectively used the word “impeach” nearly 200 times on Friday before the Special Counsel’s office disputed a bombshell report by BuzzFeed News.

According to a Daily Caller review of TV clipping service Grabien, personalities on CNN and MSNBC used the words “Impeach,” “Impeachment,” or “Impeachable,” 179 times.

The review included only original Friday programming and ran up until each network learned that BuzzFeed’s report was in dispute — shortly before 8 pm.

CNN mentioned impeachment 82 times while MSNBC mentioned it a whopping 97 times.

While some anchors and pundits hedged that the BuzzFeed story could only lead to impeachment proceedings “if true,” others repeated the story more uncritically and suggested that the president would be forced to resign and might even face obstruction of justice charges.

MSNBC’s Katy Tur, for example, stated at the top of her show that “Donald Trump is facing themost damming report to date forhis presidency.A story that could lead to hisimpeachment.”

Both outlets also interviewed a number of Democratic congresspeople to get their thoughts on the possibility of impeachment of the president. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, for example, spoke to Democratic Rep. Jim Himes about the implications of the BuzzFeed report if it turned out to be verified, while MSNBC host Chris Matthews brought on Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu.

Matthews was perhaps the most eager cable television host to prop up BuzzFeed’s report, even insisting after the Special Counsel’s office’s statement that, “not accurate … it doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

BuzzFeed’s story, dependent on two anonymous sources, alleged that former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen was directed by President Donald Trump to lie about business deals in Moscow during the 2016 presidential campaign.

A spokesperson for Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team disputed the crux of the report within 24 hours of its publication, stating, “BuzzFeed’s description of specific statements to the Special Counsel’s Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s Congressional testimony are not accurate.”

A spokesperson for special counsel Robert Mueller’s office released a statement Friday disputing a BuzzFeed report alleging President Donald Trump directed his former attorney Michael Cohen to make false statements to Congress regarding a proposed real estate deal in Russia.

“BuzzFeed’s description of specific statements to the Special Counsel’s Office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s Congressional testimony are not accurate,” special counsel spokesperson Peter Carr said in a statement.

BuzzFeed, citing two unidentified law enforcement officials, alleged in a Thursday evening report that President Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress and that he regularly briefed the president and his family on the Trump Tower project in Moscow. BuzzFeed claimed Cohen told Mueller that President Trump personally instructed him to lie about the timing of the project in order to obscure Trump’s involvement. No other news organization was able to confirm the report nearly 24 hours after it’s publication.

Further, BuzzFeed said Mueller’s investigators learned about President Trump’s directive “through interviews with multiple witnesses from the Trump Organization and internal company emails, text messages, and a cache of other documents.” The report says Cohen then acknowledged Trump’s instructions when he was interviewed by the Mueller team. “We are continuing to report and determine what the special counsel is disputing. We remain confident in the accuracy of our report,” Ben Smith, BuzzFeed’s editor-in-chief, said in a statement on the special counsel’s dispute of its reportage.

The special counsel’s statement came hours after several prominent news organizations, including Breitbart News, expressed deep skepticism about the report. In a Friday morning opinion-editorial, Breitbart News’s John Nolte wrote that report’s co-author, Jason Leopold, has gotten in hot water for erroneous reporting. Columbia Journalism Review has described Leopold “serial fabulist,” who falsely claimed Karl Rove would be indicted for leaking CIA operative Valerie Plame’s name to the media. Further, Nolte also pointed out that President Trump is not an avid user of email or text messages — thus leaving little other means to corroborate BuzzFeed’s story. Speaking with CNN’s New Day Friday morning, Leopold’s co-author, Anthony Cormier, stood by the report, though he did admit he had “not personally” seen the underlying evidence.

Earlier Friday, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani said “any suggestion — from any source — that the President counseled Michael Cohen to lie is categorically false.” In addition, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders called the allegation “absolutely ridiculous.”

The report comes as House Democrats have promised a thorough look into Trump’s ties to Russia, and as Mueller is investigating Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election and contacts with the Trump campaign.

Giuliani noted that Cohen had pleaded guilty to lying and quoted federal prosecutors in New York who chastised him for a “pattern of lies and dishonesty over an extended period of time.” Mueller’s team, however, has called him a credible witness.

“Today’s claims are just more made-up lies born of Michael Cohen’s malice and desperation,” Giuliani said in a statement.

Lanny Davis, a Cohen adviser, declined to comment on the matter. Though Republicans stayed mostly silent, two Democrat committee chairmen in the House vowed to launch inquiries.

Reacting to the report, House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) pledged to “do what’s necessary to find out” if the report was true. He said the allegation that President Trump directed Cohen to lie in his 2017 testimony “in an effort to curtail the investigation and cover up his business dealings with Russia is among the most serious to date.”

Adam Schiff

✔@RepAdamSchiff

The allegation that the President of the United States may have suborned perjury before our committee in an effort to curtail the investigation and cover up his business dealings with Russia is among the most serious to date. We will do what’s necessary to find out if it’s true.

BuzzFeed News

✔@BuzzFeedNews

BREAKING: President Trump personally directed his longtime attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow in order to obscure his involvement. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonleopold/trump-russia-cohen-moscow-tower-mueller-investigation?bftwnews&utm_term=4ldqpgc#4ldqpgc …

Calling the allegations a “counterintelligence concern of the greatest magnitude,” Schiff said his committee had already been working to secure witness testimony and documents related to the Moscow deal. Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-TX), a fellow House Intelligence Committee member demanded that the president resign or be impeachment, once again, contingent upon the report’s accuracy.

“If the @BuzzFeed story is true, President Trump must resign or be impeached,” the lawmaker tweeted.

Joaquin Castro

✔@JoaquinCastrotx

If the @BuzzFeed story is true, President Trump must resign or be impeached.

Some of President Trump’s closest allies and media boosters, including his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., mocked BuzzFeed on social media over its now-dispute story:

Donald Trump Jr.

✔@DonaldJTrumpJr

BuzzFeed News

✔@BuzzFeedNews

UPDATE: A spokesperson for the special counsel is disputing BuzzFeed News’ report. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonleopold/trump-russia-cohen-moscow-tower-mueller-investigation?bftwnews&utm_term=4ldqpgc#4ldqpgc …

UPDATE: A spokesperson for the special counsel is disputing BuzzFeed News’ report. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonleopold/trump-russia-cohen-moscow-tower-mueller-investigation?bftwnews&utm_term=4ldqpgc#4ldqpgc …

If the media does not spend — minute for minute — the same amount of time on the death of the latest #FakeNews from @BuzzFeed (RIP) that they did speculating about “IF IT’S TRUE !” then they should quit even pretending to be unbiased. What a disgrace. #RIPbuzzfeed

The New Yorker’s Ronan Farrow said he turned down the chance to report parts of BuzzFeed’s report, citing a key source who repeatedly disputed the allegation that the president asked Cohen to lie before Congress.

Ronan Farrow

✔@RonanFarrow

I can’t speak to Buzzfeed’s sourcing, but, for what it’s worth, I declined to run with parts of the narrative they conveyed based on a source central to the story repeatedly disputing the idea that Trump directly issued orders of that kind.

In November, Cohen stated in a guilty plea that he lied to Congress about a Moscow real estate deal he pursued on President Trump’s behalf during the heat of the 2016 Republican campaign. He claimed he lied to be consistent with President Trump’s “political messaging.”

Cohen was sentenced December 12 to three years in federal prison after pleading guilty to several charges, including campaign finance violations and making false statements to Congress. Prior to his sentencing, Federal prosecutors in Manhattan asked a judge to sentence Cohen to a “substantial term of imprisonment,” arguing that he had been motivated by “personal greed.”

Reacting to Cohen’s plea, President Trump called Cohen a “weak person” who was lying to get a lighter sentence and stressed that the real estate deal at issue was never a secret and never executed. Giuliani said that Cohen was a “proven liar” and that Trump’s business organization had voluntarily given Mueller the documents cited in the guilty plea “because there was nothing to hide.”

“There would be nothing wrong if I did do it,” the president said of pursuing the project. “I was running my business while I was campaigning. There was a good chance that I wouldn’t have won, in which case I would have gone back into the business, and why should I lose lots of opportunities?”

Cohen is scheduled to testify before the House Oversight Committee on February 7 about his work history with President Trump.

Who can argue if Democrats hate this country? They want to protect other countries but not this country.

The spending bills proposed by House Democrats to end the partial government shutdown offer no funding for a U.S.-Mexico border wall, but provide over $12 billion more in foreign aid than the Trump administration requested, according to a statement on Thursday from the White House Office of Management and Budget.

The statement warned the new House Democrat majority of President Trump’s intention to veto the bills, noting that the administration “cannot accept legislation that provides unnecessary funding for wasteful programs while ignoring the Nation’s urgent border security needs.”

The statement reiterated President Trump’s request for “at least $5 billion for border security” and asserted that the Democrats’ proposal “does not come close to providing these necessary investments and authorities.”

The White House then highlighted the billions in funding the Democrats are offering for “unnecessary programs at excessive levels” beyond what the Trump administration requested, including:

$12 billion more for “international affairs programs,” including $2.9 billion more “for economic and development assistance, including funding for the West Bank/Gaza, Syria, and Pakistan, where our foreign aid is either frozen or under review.”

$700 million more than requested for the United Nations, including restored funding for the United Nation’s Population Fund, which would undermine the administration’s Mexico City Policy that bars the use of taxpayer dollars for foreign organizations that “promote or perform abortions.”

Approximately $2 billion more than requested for the Environmental Protection Agency

$7.1 billion more than the administration requested for Housing and Urban Development programs

The statement’s full passage regarding the Democrats’ additional funding reads:

The six bills provided for under H.R. 21 provide funding at levels nearly 20 percent higher than the President’s FY 2019 Budget. For instance, H.R. 21 provides $12 billion more for international affairs programs, 29 percent higher than the President’s request. This includes $2.9 billion more than the request for economic and development assistance, including funding for the West Bank/Gaza, Syria, and Pakistan, where our foreign aid is either frozen or under review. It includes $700 million more than requested for the United Nations, including restoring funding for the United Nations Population Fund. The bill would also undermine the President’s Mexico City Policy (Presidential Memorandum of January 23, 2017), which prohibits the funding of foreign nongovernmental organizations that promote or perform abortions. Further, H.R. 21 includes approximately $2 billion in excessive Environmental Protection Agency funding, providing funds beyond the Agency’s core mission and including funding for programs that can and should be executed at the local level. The bill also includes substantial unrequested funding for HUD programs, including $7.1 billion above the FY 2019 Budget request for HUD rental assistance programs. These and other excessive spending items makes the lack of adequate border funding in the combined package all the more unacceptable.

“The administration looks forward to working with the Congress to enact appropriations that will adequately secure the Nation’s borders and get the federal government back to work for the American people as soon as possible,” the statement concluded.

Update: The Democrat spending bills passed the House on Thursday night. The first bill, a continuing resolution to fund the Department of Homeland Security until February 8, passed by 239-192. The bill would “keep border security funding at $1.3 billion, providing no new funding for the barrier along the southern border,” the Hill reports. The second bill to fund the other six agencies through September passed by 241-190.

Flynn should have known better. He is a scumbag anyway with his Turkish connection.

Andrew McCabe urged Michael Flynn to meet with FBI agents without White House attorneys present, according to a court filing submitted Tuesday in the special counsel’s probe.
McCabe and other FBI officials also decided not to provide a warning to Flynn about penalties regarding lying to the FBI.
Though Flynn’s lawyers are suggesting he was trapped into lying to the FBI, the new filing does not explain why the retired lieutenant general made false statements about his interactions with Russia’s ambassador
Just days into President Donald Trump’s tenure, then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe urged then-national security adviser Michael Flynn to meet with two FBI agents without White House lawyers present, claiming that a limited meeting would be the “quickest” way to have a conversation about Flynn’s discussions weeks earlier with Russia’s ambassador.

As if that scenario was not fraught with enough legal landmines, Flynn was also not warned by the two agents he met with about the penalties for lying to federal investigators. That’s because McCabe and other FBI officials decided before the fateful Jan. 24, 2017 meeting that “they wanted Flynn to be relaxed.” The officials “were concerned that giving the warnings might adversely affect the rapport” between Flynn and his FBI interlocutors.

Those revelations are tucked into a 178-page filing that Flynn’s lawyers submitted on Tuesday in the special counsel’s investigation.

While the filing contains new details about the White House interview, Flynn’s team does not provide an explanation for why the retired lieutenant general made false statements to the FBI agents, aside from saying that he “recognizes that his actions were wrong and he accepts full responsibility for them.”

While Flynn’s lawyers said in the filing that he is remorseful for lying to the FBI during that Jan. 24, 2017 meeting, the activities of McCabe and the FBI agents who interviewed Flynn are sure to generate outcry about overreach in the Russia investigation. Flynn’s supporters have noted that McCabe and one of the FBI agents, Peter Strzok, have run into ethical and legal problems of their own.

According to the filing, McCabe wrote in a memo just after arranging the White House visit that he suggested to Flynn that attorneys stay out of the interview in order to save time.

“I explained that I thought the quickest way to get this done was to have a conversation between [General Flynn] and the agents only,” McCabe wrote.

Flynn went along with McCabe’s suggestion, telling McCabe that involving White House lawyers “would not be necessary.” He agreed “to meet with the agents without any additional participants,” according to McCabe.

Less than two hours after that conversation, Peter Strzok, the FBI counterintelligence official leading the Russia probe, visited Flynn along with another FBI agent.

According to notes cited by Flynn’s lead attorney, Robert Kelner, one of the two FBI interviewers noted that Flynn was “relaxed and jocular” during their session. The agent said that Flynn appeared to treat the FBI agents as allies.

Seemingly acting on instructions from FBI brass, “the agents did not provide General Flynn with a warning of the penalties for making a false statement under 18 U.S.C. § 1001 before, during, or after the interview,” Kelner writes.

Flynn has since acknowledged giving false statements during that interview. He pleaded guilty on Dec. 1, 2017 to lying to the FBI agents about conversations he had in December 2016 with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

Flynn’s lawyers are seeking no jail time for the former lieutenant general, a request that is in line with prosecutors’ recommendation in a filing submitted on Dec. 4. Special counsel Robert Mueller in that filing cited Flynn’s “substantial assistance” in three separate investigations.

Kelner noted that Flynn, who was fired as national security adviser on Feb. 13, 2017, continued cooperating with the special counsel’s office “even when circumstances later came to light that prompted extensive public debate about the investigation of General Flynn.”

The lawyer appeared to be referencing the firestorm surrounding McCabe and Strzok.

McCabe was fired on March 16 after the FBI’s personnel office and Justice Department inspector general determined that he made misleading statements under oath about authorizing leaks to the media in October 2016 regarding an investigation into the Clinton Foundation.

Prosecutors are reportedly pursuing a case against McCabe.

Strzok was removed from the Mueller investigation in July 2017 and fired from the FBI on Aug. 13 of this year because of anti-Trump text messages he exchanged with his mistress, FBI lawyer Lisa Page.

Kelner noted that Flynn met with the special counsel’s office five times before entering his plea deal on Dec. 1, 2017. He had 14 more meeting with prosecutors after striking the agreement.

The filing did not address other legal issues Flynn has faced.

As part of his plea deal, Flynn acknowledged making false statements when he registered with the Justice Department as a foreign agent of Turkey for consulting work he did during the campaign. Flynn’s plea deal protected him from being prosecuted by the special counsel for his Turkish lobbying. Prosecutors in Virginia are investigating some of Flynn’s former business partners.

Former FBI Director James Comey revealed in closed-door testimony with House Republicans on Friday that he deliberately concealed an explosive memorandum about his one-on-one Oval Office meeting with President Trump in February 2017 from top Department of Justice officials.

The former FBI head also acknowledged that when the agency initiated its counterintelligence probe into possible collusion between Trump campaign officials and the Russian government in July 2016, investigators “didn’t know whether we had anything” and that “in fact, when I was fired as director [in May 2017], I still didn’t know whether there was anything to it.”

His remarks square with testimony this summer from former FBI lawyer Lisa Page, whose anti-Trump texts became a focus of House GOP oversight efforts. Page told Congress in a closed-door deposition that “even as far as May 2017” — more than nine months after the counterintelligence probe commenced — “we still couldn’t answer the question” as to whether Trump staff had improperly colluded with Russia.

Comey further testified on Friday that he and his aides were “all very concerned” about how the president had spoken of the probe into fired National Security Adviser Michael Flynn in a private Oval Office meeting, according to a 235-page transcript of his remarks released as a part of an agreement between House Republicans and Comey.

The fired FBI director wrote in his memorandum that Trump had told him, “I hope you can let this go,” amid reports that Flynn had lied to the FBI and senior White House officials about his contacts with Russia’s government.

But despite that concern, Comey told Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, that he and his team made a “judgment call” not to tell then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions or his lieutenants about Trump’s comments, saying he thought Sessions would recuse himself “in a matter of days” from the Russia probe.

“We agreed that we ought to hold it very close, not brief the investigative team at this point and not go over and talk to the leadership of the Department of Justice, to hold onto it until we got a new deputy attorney general and they sorted out how they were going to supervise the Russia investigation,” Comey said.

Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, at center, pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. (AP)

Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who was later fired for leaking a self-serving story to the press and lying about it to Comey and federal investigators, was among the brain trust Comey sat down with to discuss his options. The two were joined, Comey said, by then-FBI General Counsel James Baker and Comey’s chief of staff, James Rybicki.

Comey told lawmakers that others may have been present as well, including FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich (who was an associate deputy director at the time), National Security Branch Executive Director Carl Ghattas, and FBI counterintelligence head Bill Priestap, who recently announced he would leave the agency by year-end. Comey said that he did not believe anti-Trump FBI Agent Peter Strzok or former FBI lawyer Lisa Page were in the room.

Comey testified: “We believed that the Attorney General, Mr. Sessions, was on the cusp of recusing himself from anything related to Russia, so it didn’t make any sense to brief him on it, and that there was no deputy attorney general at that point.” (Sally Yates, a holdover from the Obama administration, was terminated by Trump in late January 2017 after she refused to defend the administration’s ban on travel from several Muslim-majority nations in court.)

“We agreed that we ought to hold it very close.”

— Former FBI Director James Comey

Sessions recused himself from Russia-related matters shortly afterward, in early March 2017 — a decision that Trump has since called a “terrible mistake,” although it was recommended by career Justice Department officials in part because Sessions had met with Russian dignitaries while assisting with the Trump campaign. But Jordan pressed Comey on why he decided not to tell the next-in-command at the DOJ.

Lawmakers release transcript of testimony from former FBI Director James Comey; reaction from Rep. Jim Jordan, Republican member of the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees.

“I don’t know who was No. 3 at that point,” Comey responded. “There was an acting — there was a U.S. Attorney acting as the deputy attorney general, who we knew would be in the seat only until Rod Rosenstein was confirmed,” he added, in an apparent reference to former Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente, who served until Rosenstein took the job in April 2017.

Comey continued that “it made sense to hold onto it” because “we saw no investigative urgency.”

But unredacted sections of Comey’s other memoranda documenting his conversations with Trump apparently demonstrate that he later did inform Boente and other top DOJ officials about other sensitive matters concerning his conversations with the president.

In a memorandum documenting his phone conversation with Trump on March 30, 2017, about how to “lift the cloud” of the Russia investigation from the White House, Comey wrote, “I called the acting attorney general and relayed the substance of the above and said I was telling him so he could decide what guidance to give me, if any.”

In a call from the White House that day, Comey wrote that Trump had asked him “several times” to “find a way to get out” to the public that he was not actively under investigation as part of the ongoing federal probe into possible Russia collusion with his team. Comey assured Trump, and congressional leaders, that the president was not being investigated at the time.

Former FBI Director James Comey, with his attorney, David Kelley, right, speaks to reporters after a day of testimony before the House Judiciary and Oversight committees, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, Dec. 7, 2018. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) (Associated Press)

House Republicans are set to have another opportunity to question Comey before they lose majority status when the new Congress is seated in January. The fired FBI director told reporters his return visit for more testimony will likely come the “week after next.”

Comey largely frustrated GOP lawmakers during Friday’s session, in large part because his lawyers urged him not to answer numerous questions. On Twitter after his testimony, Comey sharply criticized what he characterized as Republicans’ “desperate attempt to find anything that can be used to attack the institutions of justice investigating this president.”

But while Comey insisted in the interview that “we never investigated the Trump campaign for political purposes,” the transcript shows he claimed ignorance or memory lapses in response to questions concerning key details and events in the Russia investigation, which some GOP lawmakers continue to claim was improperly conducted.

The transcript reveals lawmakers’ frustration with his lack of specifics. Asked if he recalled who drafted the FBI’s “initiation document” for the July 2016 Russia investigation, Comey said, “I do not.” He again claimed not to know when asked about the involvement in that initiation of Peter Strzok, whose anti-Trump texts later got him removed from the special counsel’s probe.

When asked if the FBI had any evidence that anyone in the Trump campaign conspired to hack the DNC server, Comey gave a lengthy answer referring to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation as to why he couldn’t answer.

Early Sunday, Trump slammed Comey’s testimony repeatedly on Twitter, deriding him as “Leakin’ James Comey.”

On 245occasions, former FBI Director James Comey told House investigators he didn’t know, didn’t recall, or couldn’t remember things when asked. Opened investigations on 4 Americans (not 2) – didn’t know who signed off and didn’t know Christopher Steele. All lies!

Leakin’ James Comey must have set a record for who lied the most to Congress in one day. His Friday testimony was so untruthful! This whole deal is a Rigged Fraud headed up by dishonest people who would do anything so that I could not become President. They are now exposed!

But there was a time when Comey, by his own accounting, didn’t think of himself as the kind of person who would leak information behind the president’s back.

In a Jan. 28, 2017, dinner with Trump in the White House’s Green Room, Comey wrote in a since-released memorandum that he told the president, “I don’t do sneaky things, I don’t leak, I don’t do weasel moves.“

James Comey Admits FBI Was Still Probing ‘Pee’ Dossier Until Day He Was Fired

At the time James B. Comey was fired as FBI director, his agency was still attempting to corroborate claims made in the infamous, largely-discredited anti-Trump dossier, Comey admitted.

In testimony to the House Judiciary Committee on Friday, Comey described an effort “to try to replicate, either rule in or rule out, as much of that collection of reports that’s commonly now called the Steele dossier as possible, and that that work was ongoing when I was fired.” Trump dismissed Comey from the FBI on May 9, 2017.

A transcript of Comey’s testimony was released on Saturday. During one exchange with lawmakers, Comey said that FBI efforts to probe the dossier given to the agency by former British spy Christopher Steele started “sometime in ’16” almost immediately after Steele provided the charges.

The timing is instructive. In previous testimony, Comey admitted that he pushed back against a January 2017 request from President Donald Trump to possibly investigate the origins of the claims made inside the Steele dossier.

Comey’s latest testimony shows that even while he was cautioning Trump against ordering a probe of the dossier claims, Comey’s own FBI was quietly conducting an ongoing investigation into the wild content of that very dossier.

During prepared remarks for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, delivered on June 8, 2017, Comey related how he pushed back against a suggestion from Trump to investigate the dossier claims.

The former FBI chief stated that following a January 6 Oval Office meeting with Intelligence Community leaders, Comey “remained alone with the President Elect to brief him on some personally sensitive aspects of the information assembled during the assessment.”’

It is clear Comey was referring to the dossier since he writes the “salacious and unverified” material was about to be publicly reported by the news media. Four days after that briefing, the dossier was published by BuzzFeed.

In his statement summarizing his conversation with Trump, Comey refers to Russian prostitutes, a key component of the dossier:

He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia.

In a private White House dinner with Trump on January 27, Comey says the topic of the “salacious material” again came up and he reveals that Trump was considering asking the FBI to investigate the origins of the claims. Comey pushed back against that idea.

Comey writes:

During the dinner, the President returned to the salacious material I had briefed him about on January 6, and, as he had done previously, expressed his disgust for the allegations and strongly denied them. He said he was considering ordering me to investigate the alleged incident to prove it didn’t happen. I replied that he should give that careful thought because it might create a narrative that we were investigating him personally, which we weren’t, and because it was very difficult to prove a negative. He said he would think about it and asked me to think about it.

The Steele dossier was reportedly funded by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) via the Perkins Coie law firm.

A House Intelligence Committee memo released last February documented that as FBI director, Comey signed three FISA applications to spy on former Trump adviser Carter Page with the dossier serving as part of the basis for the warrant requests.

Comey signed the applications without telling the FISA court that the dossier was financed by Trump’s primary political opponents, the memo related.

“Neither the initial application in October 2016, nor any of the renewals, disclose or reference the role of the DNC, Clinton campaign, or any party/campaign in funding Steele’s efforts, even though the political origins of the Steele dossier were then known to senior and FBI officials,” the memo states.

The GOP memo also relates that after Steele was terminated months earlier as an FBI source a “source validation report conducted by an independent unit within FBI assessed Steele’s reporting as only minimally corroborated.” Still, Comey saw fit, according to the Republican and Democrat memos, to utilize the dossier in the FISA documents. He also briefed Trump and then-President Barack Obama on the dossier contents.